


Be Here With Me

by ofpinetreesandcampfires



Series: Chowen Fics [3]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV), Julie and The Phantoms (TV) RPF
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, soft, their journey
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-17 22:55:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28607859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofpinetreesandcampfires/pseuds/ofpinetreesandcampfires
Summary: There’s a moment between a glance, and a kiss where the world stops, for the briefest of times. And the only thing between us is the anticipation of your lips on mine. A moment so intense it hangs in the air. As it pulls us closer a moment, so perfect that when it comes to an end we realize it’s only just beginning.-- Unknown***Following Owen and Charlie from their first kiss to the beginning of the rest of their lives.Previously titled "Their Journey"
Relationships: Charlie Gillespie/Owen Patrick Joyner
Series: Chowen Fics [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2088375
Comments: 32
Kudos: 98





	1. You Make Me Want...

**Author's Note:**

> Title inspired by the song Here with Me by Elina

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takes place during filming.

Owen falls in love quietly and all at once. He remembers the first time he met Charlie, stumbling over his words and flirting with him so badly that Savannah snorted into her hand and wouldn’t stop until they left the room. When Charlie asks, “do you wanna, kinda, maybe, do this thing?” after boot camp, talking about maybe splitting the rent for an apartment, they’re about to fly to Vancouver to shoot the actual scenes. Owen’s heart rises in his throat and sinks to his stomach at the same time.

“It’s bad this time, isn’t it?” Savannah asks as she lay on the couch in the apartment he shares with Charlie. The TV’s on in the background, but he ignores it in favor of sighing. He’s always loved when someone plays with his hair, and it’s long enough now that she can actually give him small braids. He rests his head in her lap and keeps his eyes closed.

He hums in response, doesn’t have to say anything. Savannah’s been his friend since they first started shooting _Knight Squad_ and he’s so excited to have someone who knows him on this project. Especially with his Charlie problem.

“He’s just… so…” He makes fluttering gestures with his hands. “I don’t know. He’s just so… Charlie.” He buries his face in his hands and Savannah chuckles. He’s so glad Charlie’s gone for the day—he’d shouted something Owen couldn’t here before leaving—because he needs advice.

“Well, I think he’d be receptive if you talked to him,” Savannah says as she sweeps some hair from his forehead.

“But won’t it be weird?”

“Why?”

“Because we’re bandmates? And living together?”

“You sound like a cliché, O. I don’t think anyone would care.” She chuckles. “In fact, I think Maddie would be ecstatic.”

“Yeah, well, Maddie’s fifteen,” he says it in and it sounds so dismissive that he cringes. He loves Maddie like a little sister he’s never had, but she _is_ also a kid. She and Jadah are always talking about the love stories in the show as if they’re magical, but it’s a show. Owen can’t date Charlie. What if something goes wrong? What if he messes up? What if Charlie doesn’t like him and it ruins the good thing they have going on here? Will he have to move out of the apartment so it doesn’t get awkward?

Savannah taps his forehead. Once. Twice. And then brushes two fingers down the left side of his temple. He blinks up at her. “I know you don’t want to talk to him now. But, either you do that, or something’s going to happen.” She smiles at him. “You’ve never been the best at keeping your impulses in check. Especially with crushes.”

He scowls at her but she goes back to braiding the short strands of his hair, brushing her fingers through it, and trailing two fingers down his temple again. Eventually, he falls asleep, trying not to dream about Charlie and failing miserably. 

* * *

This wasn’t how Owen wanted it to be.

He’s had this idea, for a long time, that he won’t ever confess to Charlie and he’s fine with that. Content, even. A crush doesn’t _have_ to change things. He just wants to bask in the light that comes off Charlie, because it shines so warm and good, and that’s enough. As long as they’re friends, Owen’s _fine_ with that.

He is.

Until he isn’t.

Until the feeling in his chest becomes so dense and heavy with want he can feel it drape over him like a cloak in every one of his waking moments. Even in some of his sleeping ones. It’s not the same kind of feeling of anxiety he when trying out for the show and then doing the show while rooming with Charlie and learning to sing and dance and get better at the drums. This is different.

Until the word _crush_ becomes less sufficient and _love_ crawls its way inside of his mouth and makes its home there. (It tastes sweet and warms him like hot tea and Owen doesn’t know what it’s like to be cold anymore.)

Until Charlie’s energy becomes intoxicating, blinding hot, setting fire to his blood so easily— too easily— with casual, friendly touches. There have been others, but nothing like this. Other crushes that had become _almost_ and _maybe_ and _what-if_ , but it’s different this time.

So, due to this inevitable outcome, Owen has to rethink some things. Not that he minds; once he’s opened himself to what he’s feeling, once he’s claimed it, there’s a sort of satisfaction in that.

Even if Charlie can’t return the feelings, now or ever, Owen’s satisfied, and that alone is liberating. Savannah knows and has respected the fact that Owen's too much of a coward to do anything. Naming the feeling is brave, but he doesn't want to ruin what he and Charlie have going for them.

So, he thinks, and thinks, the anxiety in him rising so high he has to drink about five cups of tea every day just to calm himself down. Charlie’s noticed too, looking worried, but he doesn’t say anything. And _this_ isn’t how he wants it to be.

Owen’s impulses are hard to control, even now, and it doesn’t help that it’s after midnight and he’s up late trying to focus on the script in front of him, words blurring together, his tea long gone cold next to his elbow. It doesn’t help that Charlie is sitting there next to him, humming quietly, absently, as he flips through his own script, filled with edits and other additions or changes to scenes, one elbow on the table, cheek in hand. It doesn’t help that his charming nature stands out in these easy moments without even trying, that it makes him all the more wonderful and irresistible. It doesn’t help that they’re alone in their apartment (as they usually are but Jeremy was here just an hour ago, working out a shared scene), or that Owen fell in love with this boy as quickly as blinking— “Owen, you’re staring…again.”

He’s had this idea, that he could work up to it, slowly.

There’s time, and Owen can afford to go slow. _This_ is how he wanted to be.

But…his impulses are hard to control. Especially around Charlie. It's why they get up to so much dumb shit when they're not fully shooting a scene. Wrestling and pouring water on each other and throwing pine cones.

Owen blinks at Charlie— crazy, insane, talented, hyperactive Charlie— and then he licks his lips. “You make me want to kiss you.”

This is not soft, or gentle or slow. Owen can feel the surprise at his own words almost as well as he can see it stick to Charlie’s face, sitting up straight now, shoulders turned toward him. His mouth opens and then closes, once, twice, searching for words and Owen watches with previously unmatched satisfaction as heat visibly sweeps up his neck.

“W-What?” Charlie finally chokes out.

It’s too late to take back; despite Charlie’s question, it’s all too clear that he knows exactly what Owen said. He wonders why the embarrassment doesn’t burn him, why his anxiety isn't going through the roof as it usually is when he does something stupid. His heart pounds viciously in his chest, and his face feels hot, but it doesn’t make him clumsy or unsure, the way he usually is around a crush. Goddamn it, he wanted to be smoother. This was much too blunt. “I’m…sorry.”

Charlie still looks like his eyes are about to pop out of his head. “What— _what_ was I doing?”

That’s not at all the reply Owen expected. His heart jumps a little. “What…? I don’t know. Do you have to be doing anything?”

“O, we haven’t had more than a combined eight hours of sleep in like two days,” Charlie complains. His face is no less red, but something delicious begins to curl in Owen’s stomach when he doesn’t outright reject Owen or attempt to move away. “My hair is a mess. I have coffee breath and we’re just–we’re sitting here looking over more script changes in the middle of the night. _What_ about that makes _you_ —?” He cuts off abruptly.

There’s a familiar tension that falls between them, one that’s been present for a few months now, since they started on-location filming and began living together, that neither of them have attempted to alleviate. Owen feels it press against his skin.

“Forget I said anything,” Owen offers and the tone of his voice is hilariously conversational. He doesn’t know where this confidence has come from; he has no experience with anything like this. Sure, he went on one date with Dani, but they realized they were better off as friends. He’s never just vomited up his feelings to someone. Must be the sleep deprivation. “I…I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

Charlie hasn’t looked away from him once. “Did you mean it?”

He furrows his eyebrows. “You really think I’d say that if I didn’t mean it?”

Charlie throws his hands up as if in surrender. “Well, I don’t know! I have _coffee breath_ , Owen!”

Owen chuckles, but he can feel the intensity of his own gaze as he looks at Charlie without trying to filter it for the first time. He watches with delight as Charlie’s expression turns from embarrassed frustration to something a little less guarded and a little more stunned. He can nearly hear the way Charlie’s breath leaves him in an uneven stutter.

“Well? Would you let me?” Owen asks, and his voice is finally soft and full of heat. If he's going to get it all out, he's going to go big.

“W-Would…would I let you…?” Charlie blinks at him and the tension thickens almost unbearably until it's as thick as molasses. His gaze drifts down to Owen’s mouth and back up. It's happened a few times while they're in character; Maddie keeps asking about Alex and Luke's relationship in the past because of how he and Owen act around each other. Whenever they've talked to Kenny about it, the man just shrugs and says that they can come up with that fact on their own and play it up however they want within the constraints of a scene.

“Let me kiss you.” Owen thinks now would be the time to reach towards him, but he doesn’t know how to do that. Instead, he leans on the table, a reflected image of Charlie’s earlier pose, emotion tight in his chest. He never thought he’d get this far so fast and he’s nearly dizzy with bliss over how well this is going. He owes Savannah, like, a hundred bucks because she was _right._ Not that he's going to tell her; she doesn't need a big head like Carrie.

Charlie barely takes a moment to reply; the quickness of it sets Owen on fire. “Yes. Yeah. _Yeah._ ”

It takes all of his restraint to simply nod and make as though he’s turning his attention back to the scripts in front of them. “Okay. Cool. Thanks.”

Immediately, it has Charlie gasping in indignation, adorably put out. “Thanks? _Thanks?!_ Joyner, if you don’t kiss me right now, I’m gonna—”

“You’ll what?” Owen asks, but his voice cracks as he turns his gaze back to Charlie. Is he... does he _want_ Owen to kiss him? 

Charlie turns in his chair so that his entire body is squared in Owen’s direction. His face is flushed so bright it could be glowing. “I’m gonna die. I swear I will. You can’t just dangle something like that in front of me and not follow through! Do you want me to _die,_ Owen?!”

God, the brunette is so dramatic.

Owen pushes his chair back and stands, leaning over Charlie with one hand braced on the table, the other on the back of Charlie’s chair, as hunger swoops low in his stomach. Every inch of his skin feels like it’s burning and he wonders, if he touches Charlie now, will be a balm or will the heat consume him entirely.

“Do you want it that bad?” It’s not even a tease. His voice is dry, nearly desperate as he searches Charlie’s wide, blue eyes for answers. With all that tension between them he’d hoped, he’d entertained the thought that _maybe_ …but this is— _this is_ —

“Yes,” Charlie whispers, gazing up at him head tilted back, his eyes darting to Owen’s mouth again. “Owen, please—”

Owen has his hand hooked behind Charlie’s neck before he can finish, and its heat. His breath shakes as he leans in, pressing his mouth firmly against Charlie’s, feeling how that heat races down his spine like a shot of liquor. He pulls back after only a moment, not wanting to push too far, wanting to gauge Charlie’s reaction properly— to see how he might look after being kissed by him but Charlie’s hands are suddenly fists in the front of Owen’s sleep shirt.

He keeps Owen’s forehead against his brow, and he doesn’t let him take a single inch.

“No, come back,” he breathes and it’s a fucking _p_ _lea_. He’s _begging_ for it. “Please, please, come back.”

Whether Charlie knows it or not, Owen has never been able to deny him anything. He swears under his breath and then leans back in. Charlie immediately opens up with a sound caught somewhere between a sigh and a moan. Owen devours it eagerly. His other hand grabs Charlie’s arm and he pulls him to his feet enough to turn them so that Charlie’s back is pressed to the table. One kiss turns into two, and then three, and then Owen can’t keep track anymore.

Charlie runs his hands up and over his shoulders and winds his arms around Owen’s neck as Owen’s hands drift down over his chest and around his waist, pressing him back into the table. They’re close, so close, and even preoccupied with this, Owen has enough presence of mind to appreciate how good Charlie smells. Like musk and citrus mixed with the sharp tang of coffee in the air. Owen watches as the lights from the Vancouver skyline mix with the dim lights inside the apartment play across the brunette's face, making his eyes shine like crystals.

“God,” Charlie says when Owen becomes a little braver, and begins to move his mouth down along his jaw. “Fuck _._ Owen, why didn’t you—how long have you—”

“Months,” Owen says, and his voice is low, as his arms wrap around Charlie slowly. He kisses all the way back to his ear and then licks at the delicate spot beneath the corner of his jaw before kissing that, too. “ _Months._ ”

“Y-You—” Charlie cuts off with another breathy sigh.

“Me,” Owen says, and then plants his mouth back on Charlie’s without further preamble. Somewhere in the back of his mind— the far, far back, where the heat hasn’t quite touched— he’s aware that they still have work to do. He knows that it’s late, and they’re both delirious from a lack of sleep. He can feel how his lips have become demanding, especially after Charlie surrenders the wet cavern of his mouth and melts against him with a moan that rocks through Owen like lightning.

And then he remembers how he had wanted this to go, and it wasn’t supposed to be like this. Charlie runs his hands through Owen’s hair and makes a small sound of confusion when Owen pulls away slowly.

“What is it?” Charlie asks breathlessly, peering up at him, almost nervously.

Owen reaches up and runs a thumb over Charlie’s swollen lip as if in apology. “Sorry, I got carried away. I wanted to be softer, with you.”

Charlie smiles at that, the nerves disappearing as fondness steals over his expression. He moves one hand to Owen’s jaw and runs a thumb over his cheek. “I didn’t know you were such a romantic.”

Owen laughs and drops his hand back down to wrap his arm around Charlie’s waist again. He didn’t know it either, really, but he wants to be like that, for Charlie. “It never came up.”

“Well, for the record, you don’t have to be soft with me,” Charlie tells him, tapping his chin lightly, idly, before reaching back to play again with the ends of Owen’s hair. Alex's hairstyle suits him and he's probably gonna keep it once the show's over. “I want you to kiss me the way you want to kiss me, m'kay? I like it when you follow your impulses. I mean, look where we are now.” He grins wide and Owen thinks, briefly, that Charlie has never shone brighter than this, right now, here in the circle of Owen’s arms. “You make me wanna kiss you, too.”

Owen raises an eyebrow playfully and tightens his hold. “Then kiss me.”

Charlie smirks and wiggles his eyebrows. “Okay, but just remember, you asked for it.”


	2. What You Want...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takes place during filming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here's the second part. No idea how many parts this is going to be or how long between chapters.

Owen sits alone in the catering tent, trying to find his appetite in the strange calm of the early morning as he stares down at his plate of food. There’s the hustle and bustle of set up somewhere outside, crews moving stuff and other actors coming in and out of the tent. He’s early, but he had to do something, had to move away from the temptation that he knows would be a sleepy Charlie blinking at him with soft morning eyes and a crooked grin. It’s the same restlessness he’s felt for days, sleep hard to come by, so he comes to set earlier than he needs to. His skin feels like it’s almost too small, too tight, for his body. There’s excess energy thrumming through him and nothing he does can curb it.

He’s tried drowning himself in extra work. He’s tried going out on exhausting shopping trips with Savannah and walking around the nearby trails with Booboo, wearing himself into exhaustion. He’s tried taking one of those pay-by-the-kilometer bikes that sat everywhere in the city—although he learned his lesson in Sydney and always kept an extra charging brick with him so his phone wouldn’t die and he’d get lost. He mostly does that in the morning, the pre-dawn light just breaking through the skyscrapers, but none of it works. The buzz is insistent, and it doesn’t care that he can’t sleep or focus properly because of it. And his heart. It’s beating too fast, even now, by himself, when there’s no reason to beat like this at all.

It’s been days. Four long, endless days, and he can’t stop thinking about it.

The thing is that Owen is obsessed.

He doesn’t _want_ to stop thinking about it.

The way that Charlie had looked up at him. How wide and searching his eyes had been, how his voice had cracked when he begged for Owen to kiss him. He still can’t believe that Charlie had begged for it like that, that he had wanted it _that badly_. He shivers when he remembers how responsive Charlie had been, clinging to Owen as if it was the only reason he had managed to stay upright. The whole thing is so vivid that Owen can still taste the salt of Charlie’s skin and feel the heat in his blood.

It had been the first time Owen had ever kissed anyone of his own volition. Sure, he’d screen-kissed people, but did it really count as a kiss if it was scripted? What he lacked in experience he more than made up with enthusiasm and he couldn’t have been that bad because Charlie–damn, the way he _responded._ Owen can’t get it out of his head. Those heavy-lidded eyes, the needy plea of his voice. His rash impulses have never been rewarded with something so devastatingly heady. He doesn’t know what he did to deserve it, but god.

_God._

He stares down at his bowl of Cheerios, the healthiest thing offered for breakfast that wasn’t oatmeal or soggy eggs; he hadn’t wanted to wake Charlie by making his own breakfast, so he had to take what he could get. How is he supposed to have any sort of appetite after experiencing something like that? How is he supposed to eat when the only thing he’s hungry for is—

He startles out of his thoughts when there’s a clatter across the table from him. Owen looks up to see Booboo with a tray of his own, oatmeal his chosen breakfast, making himself perfectly at home there with a smile, his hair combed and shiny, his skateboard sitting next to him, helmet hanging off the side of the chair. Perfect in every way, really, before the day has even started.

“What did those poor Cheerios ever do to you?” he says by way of greeting. “Must have been something terrible because you look tense.”

Owen pushes his tray to the side with a roll of his eyes, decidedly uninterested in his food.

“Hi, Booboo.”

“You’re up early,” Booboo comments with a little hum. Owen can sense that he’s trying to take a stab at something, but he’s always been kind of delicate about breaching conversations like this. It’s as if he thinks he can coax Owen to blurt out the truth before he’s forced to drag it out of him. It’s never really worked, but he keeps trying, regardless. With recent events at the forefront of his mind, Owen is inclined to let Booboo keep dancing this time, too. Booboo has become a really good friend over the course of filming, almost like an older brother. Cheyenne is like some kind of ethereal Broadway God and Owen still can’t believe he gets to work with him, but Booboo is more on his level. Older, wiser, has been around the block quite a few times, but still so down to Earth. But this is different.

“Yeah,” Owen says, glancing at the military time on the wall. “Hey, don’t you have somewhere to be? Didn’t Kenny want to work with you on something this morning?”

“It’s your lucky day; I’ve made time to eat breakfast with you.” Booboo takes a bite out of his breakfast pointedly. “Are you doing okay? You’ve been distracted lately.” Distracted is a delicate word for it. Owen almost laughs.

He hasn’t talked to Charlie since they kissed in the kitchen. Not without Charlie trying, but Owen’s been feeling anxious and dodging him and it’s hard where they share an apartment. He stays by Maddie or Savannah or Booboo or Jeremy so he’s never alone with Charlie. The brunette’s been sending him messages and they’ve obviously had to interact with each other on set. In the apartment, he tries his hardest to do things quickly or turn in right when they get inside- long days are a good excuse to pass out before Charlie can reach for him. But never alone. None of those are very satisfying after actually kissing Charlie.

But like, he can’t tell Booboo any of this. Not when he still hasn’t actually had a chance to talk to Charlie about it. After the whole kissing thing…well, they didn’t do much _talking_ that night, you know?

“I’m fine,” Owen says, and he’s more than fine so it’s the genuine truth. Considering how long he’d wanted all of this, considering the way Charlie had wanted it, too, he’s doing pretty fantastic, actually. “Just…thinking a lot.”

Booboo swallows his bite, reading his transparency well enough to understand that Owen is being totally honest about being fine for once in his life. “Feel free to think out loud.”

Owen thinks about the way Charlie had gripped his shoulders and keened softly into his mouth under a caress to Charlie’s lower back. “I’ll spare you.”

“Booboo–”

“Trust me, you don’t wanna know.”

What happened between him and Charlie belongs to him. He doesn’t know if Charlie has told anyone about it, but he doesn’t want to share it. It’s his. He likes it that way.

“Okay…but–”

“I know, I can talk to you, Booboo. I know.” Owen gives him a smile, which makes the wariness drop from the older boy’s demeanor. He seems to understand, finally, that the thing occupying Owen’s thoughts is not weighty or detrimental.

“Alright. Good…that’s good.”

They chat about nothing in particular for a while longer as Booboo shovels his food down before he has to head off to his meeting with Kenny. Owen leaves with him, dumping his soggy cereal into the garbage before making his way to the cast trailers parked just a little ways from the Molina household set. They’re right next to the makeup trailer and is a place the cast can rest between takes or chill when they feel overwhelmed or run lines and practice songs. Charlie and Maddie wrote the majority of Perfect Harmony there. Or, he means to go back to his own trailer, but he finds himself passing his and going two down. He’s not thinking with his head on straight.

Well, he _is_ thinking. About blue sapphire eyes and dark, wispy eyelashes and the most perfect cupid’s bow in the entire universe. The heat sits in his belly like a pile of embers, smoldering him from the inside out, and all he knows is that it’s been four days and there’s still an hour before their daily band meeting with Kenny and some of the other members of the team. He could do a lot in an hour. He doesn’t even know if Charlie’s there yet, knows that when he left the apartment, the other boy was still sleeping. But, as he gets closer, he sees one of the lights on in the trailer and his heart thuds against his ribs, like it’s trying to reach the boy before he does.

Charlie answers the door immediately, and his expression goes from sleepy-annoyed to dumbfounded when he sees who it is. He must have gotten to set and gone right to sleep.

And Owen… Owen isn’t prepared, at all. Charlie’s face has a red crease from his pillow, but his eyes sparkle the morning light, making him look soft. His flannel hangs unbuttoned, revealing a tight band tee beneath, obviously missing the sleeves and Owen’s mouth goes dry. God, he’s _parched._ He drinks in the blush slowly creeping onto Charlie’s face. The way his hair sticks up in odd, wild tufts, still uncombed and disheveled, like he came from the apartment and just passed right out again. Owen takes it all in like it could sate him, but there’s not a chance in hell he’ll be satisfied until the space between their bodies has disappeared and his hands are inching up under that tight shirt.

“I’m sorry,” he says, before Charlie can ask. “I know it’s early, and I didn’t wake you up before I left, and that I’ve been avoiding you, but it’s been–it’s been four days.” His voice is rough, and deeper than he means for it to be.

Charlie stares, looking completely flustered. “This is an _ambush,_ Owen, it’s not fair! I didn’t–I just got here and went back to sleep. I look like I rolled out of bed like, five minutes ago. I look–”

“Perfect,” Owen finishes for him, taking a bold step forward across the threshold of the trailer, crowding into his space. “You look perfect, Charlie.”

Charlie takes a shaky breath.

“Let me in.” It should be a request, but it comes out like more of a demand and Owen means to backtrack and fix the tone of his voice, because it’s not gentle. And he wants to be gentle, but then Charlie visibly shivers, the red on his face deepening as he responds with a step backwards. Owen reaches back, groping a little bit, until he can close the door behind him. This time, Charlie doesn’t move away, and the proximity makes those embers in his belly burn and burn and burn.

“This is–Owen, we have a long shoot today and a full performance,” Charlie mumbles, looking up to meet Owen’s shameless gaze almost shyly.

“I have to know what you want from me,” Owen tells him, his voice a rumble in his throat.

“I thought I was obvious.” Charlie drops his gaze, cheeks still wonderfully red. Owen’s heart turns over in his chest when Charlie takes his hands slowly, gently, as though Owen might run away if he moves too fast.

Owen immediately returns the hold, closing his eyes and leaning in so that the bridge of Charlie’s nose is pressed to Owen’s down-turned forehead. When he takes a steadying breath, he can smell the citrus and sandalwood shampoo in his hair, the organic sweetness of his facial wash and everything in his life seems to point to this moment, right now.

“Tell me,” he says softly and with the utmost conviction. This is awful close to a love confession, and somehow, the thought of it doesn’t scare him. He feels steady. Calm. Sure. And so very, very warm. “Tell me. Whatever you want from me, it’s yours.”

Charlie’s grip tightens on his hands and silence follows as his words hang there in the air. It’s not awkward or unkind; he can feel Charlie processing, can feel the slight tremble of his hands where they hold onto Owen’s. Owen wants to kiss him again so very badly.

“What if I want everything?” Charlie asks, finally, his voice raw.

Owen’s answering emotion throttles him, and he pulls away slightly, opening his eyes only so he can cup Charlie’s jaw with both hands, forcing their gazes to meet. “Then take it,” he says devotedly, heart swelling, making blatant eye contact so that Charlie understands. Without skipping another beat, he brings his lips to Charlie’s and presses in tenderly.

Charlie makes a sound of surprise but then he’s putty; his hands reach up to cup Owen’s neck as Owen wraps his arms around Charlie’s shoulders to pull him in as close as possible, opening his mouth eagerly as Owen tilts his head and licks at the seam of his lips. He tastes like toothpaste and for some reason, it makes Owen’s heart ache in the most ridiculous bout of affection he’s felt yet.

“I’ve thought about this,” Charlie murmurs against Owen’s mouth. “I thought about you, like this, all the time. I-I couldn’t stop–I thought I was gonna die before I got to kiss you again.”

Owen wants to drown in him, so he walks him backwards until they are pressed to a wall and the lines of their bodies fit together more snugly than before. “I wouldn’t let that happen,” he promises, the tone of his voice like dark chocolate. Charlie very nearly whimpers as Owen punctuates his vow with a deep, lingering kiss, running his hand through the messy ends of Charlie’s hair.

“A-Ah, when did you get to be such a smooth operator?”

“I’ve been practicing in the mirror. I’m surprised you haven’t heard me.”

Charlie perks up at that, laughter in his voice as he pushes away marginally to look Owen in the eye.

“Really?”

Owen smirks. “No.”

Charlie laughs anyway, his mouth kissed-red and shiny and it’s so–it’s so good, and so wonderful and Owen loves him so much that he just has to kiss him again. He can’t help himself. He’d been so obsessed with the idea of Charlie’s mouth that he couldn’t even eat breakfast. He couldn’t _sleep._

“How are you–how are you….” Charlie slides his hands down to curl into Owen’s sweatshirt, trailing off distractedly as Owen nuzzles down the side of his neck, leaving gentle kisses as he tugs at the collar of that band shirt for access to more skin.

“How am I what?” Owen hums, allowing his amusement to color his voice.

“You’re so– _ah,_ fuck, Owen.” Charlie sighs when Owen licks at the soft spot beneath his ear and kisses it earnestly. “You’re so, so good at this.”

Owen just presses his face there, into the curve of Charlie’s throat. “Practicing…in the mirror,” he murmurs, smiling briefly to himself when Charlie lets out another breathless bout of laughter. He hums again, content. “I want to make you feel good, Charlie.”

Charlie groans at that and the sound shoots straight through Owen like an arrow, convincing him that there’s literally no reason why he shouldn’t be kissing the breath out of Charlie right now. So, he does. His mouth is a little more urgent this time, less careful, less gentle, and Charlie’s hands grow more frantic, gripping onto him tighter.

“I wanna be yours, too,” Charlie whispers against Owen’s cheekbone. It’s so quiet, uttered into his skin with so much resolve that Owen feels the intimacy of it dizzily, causing him to hold on tighter.

“Whatever you want,” Owen murmurs into the edge of Charlie’s jaw. And then he kisses Charlie again, because he wants that, too.

Maddie glares at the two of them later, red-lipped and flustered and just put together enough to not get an earful from makeup and wardrobe. Kenny just laughs it off and tells them to be careful and sighs about _young_ _love_ as Jeremy just pokes Owen's side until he has to grab his hand and hold it in his lap. Charlie just smiles at Owen over the top of Maddie's head and his heart throbs, trying to break through the cage of his ribs and jump into Charlie's hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you guys thought!!!


	3. Midnight Rendezvous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takes place during filming.

Owen is sitting there in the stove top light, going over the notes for his part of _Stand Tall_ , nerves settling in his stomach at the thought of having to sing tomorrow, out loud, in front of everyone and not just in a recording booth or as backup vocals, when he hears the soft scuffle of slippers in the hall leading back towards the bedrooms. He sets his half-finished mug of tea back down on the counter top and lifts his eyes from the papers in front of him to look at the dark doorway.

Charlie swings into view, looking far too bright-eyed for the late hour. He’s half-dressed; he’s got sweatpants on but no shirt, an open flannel the only thing keeping him warm from the chill of the apartment and dinosaur slippers on his feet that look like the ones Julie has when she meets the boys, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. His hair looks as though he’s done nothing but run his hands through it for hours and the yellow light from the stove falls across half of his face.

“Still awake?” Owen says a whisper. He doesn’t have a huge singing role in this song besides backup, but he wants it to be good for his line.

Charlie beams at him, pausing in the doorway. The look on his face tells him that he hadn’t expected to find Owen awake. It also tells him that he’s glad he has. “Just wanted a midnight snack.”

He always misses Charlie when they’re not together, but he still doesn’t know how to say that out loud. They live in the same apartment, share the same space, but he still misses the other boy when they’re not in close proximity or when he can’t see him. “You should eat, then,” he responds, peeling his eyes away to focus back on the music sheets.

“I am _starving,_ ” Charlie admits and there’s the flicker of his shadow as he crosses in front of the light towards the cupboards on the other side of the kitchen. “Did we get more of those chips Jeremy found at the grocery store, or did you eat them all?”

Owen grabs his tea without looking up and takes a sip. “Top cupboard, second shelf,” he says simply. There's a bag on a lower shelf for Maddie and Jadah to reach when they're over, but after the two of them finished three bags in two weeks without Charlie getting any, Owen had learned his lesson and put some bags higher up.

The sound of Charlie’s footsteps come to a stop and then change directions towards him. He glances up just in time to see Charlie place one hand on the counter and then lean in, his lips brushing against the hair at Owen’s temple. “Thank you,” he murmurs, and Owen can feel warmth, all velvet and smooth and candlelight soft, rising in his chest. Charlie pulls back and looks down at him with tenderness that Owen will spend his whole life making sure he deserves.

“You worked hard today; you earned that nap,” Owen tells him, running his thumb absently along the edge of his mug. They’d been doing as much practice for _Stand Tall_ as they can. Maddie’s got her part down pat and is amazing as always, but they can never practice enough.

Charlie rolls his eyes, but his smile is unwavering and so fond that it makes Owen’s chest hurt. “So did everyone else. You’re not giving little ol’ me special praise just because I’m your boyfriend, are you?”

“No.” And it’s true, really, that Charlie both deserved the nap and that he worked hard today. Owen doesn’t think that qualifies as special treatment at all. Maddie fell asleep on their couch for a few hours before her dad picked her up and Jeremy’s still in the guest bedroom, snoring loud enough for Owen to hear it faintly echoing down the hall. Tomorrow is the final run through before filming... and then they're done. Well, Maddie's done. The three of them have to stay for some of their scenes without her, but then they're all done.

Charlie scoffs, the tease evident in his expression. “Then why do I even bother?”

Owen smirks, because there are about 10 different things in his arsenal that would make Charlie eat those words, but looks he back at his tablet and takes another sip of tea. “Just get your chips, Charlie.”

Charlie pats his shoulder as he moves towards the correct cabinet. “Fine, fine. What are you still doing up, anyway?”

“Worrying about my singing tomorrow. I don’t know if I’m going to be good. I know we recorded it, but this is for real this time. By myself. With no music behind me. So I figure it won’t hurt to practice. I don’t want to mess up.” He takes another sip of his tea before mumbling the words again to himself.

“Really? You should have told me.” Charlie makes so much noise pulling the chips out of the cabinet and ripping it open and dumping some into a bowl. Owen finds himself smiling about it, shaking his head slightly, thinking that he must be weird if even Charlie’s inability to be quiet at midnight is endearing.

“It’s not a big deal. Don’t worry about it,” Owen says.

“Can you at least let me hear you? I can give you pointers.”

“If you want to.”

“Oh, you _know_ I want to.” Owen doesn’t have to turn around to know that Charlie is probably waggling his eyebrows or making some other exaggerated expression. Instead, he pulls out the stool beside him and gives it a pat, looking up at nothing in particular as he waits for Charlie.

Owen sings his part of the song in a low voice, stops, and waiting for Charlie to give him pointers, before they repeat it. Charlie eats quickly beside him and Owen holds his hand under the table, their intertwined fingers resting on top of Owen’s thigh. His thumb rubs idle patterns against Charlie’s skin, slow and lazy, until Charlie pushes the bowl away and Owen takes the last sip of his cold tea.

“So…Owen.”

“Hmm?” Owen sets the papers down and looks over at Charlie, who is leaning on the counter with his elbow, his cheek propped up in his free hand. He’s giving Owen an overly innocent look, all wide eyes and lifted eyebrows. The stove light turns him into a pretty silhouette, soft and warm around the edges, and Owen is helpless to the urge that has him bringing the back of Charlie’s captive hand to his mouth and pressing a kiss there.

“I’m not tired,” Charlie says. “Obviously. I just napped for, like, three hours.”

“Mm.” Owen drops their hands back to his lap, but there is heat in the pit of his stomach that asks for more.

“And judging by the amount of caffeinated tea I know you just inhaled, you’re not tired either.”

“I guess not.”

“I think we should reward ourselves for our hard work.”

Charlie really isn’t subtle at all and Owen still hasn’t figured out if that’s on purpose or not. “Of course,” he obliges.

“Sooo…” Charlie moves his eyes in a wide loop before smiling boyishly at Owen. “Wanna make out?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

Charlie laughs as Owen pulls him off the stool and towards the door, leaving both the dirty dish and the paper on the counter. “Where are we going?”

Owen looks over his shoulder at him as he drags Charlie into the dark hallway. “To make out.”

Charlie smothers his answering laughter into the palm of his free hand and Owen doesn’t let him go, quickly skirting through the empty hallway, but in the wrong direction. The walk to Owen’s destination is taking longer than Charlie apparently expected, because he starts complaining about five seconds later.

“ _Owen_ ,” he moans dramatically, long and drawn out, “ugh, for real, where are we going? I wanna kiss you.”

Owen abruptly stops and drags Charlie in close, claiming his mouth in one chaste kiss before pulling away, drawing on all the willpower he has not to crowd Charlie up against the wall right here in the middle of a hallway. It’s too dark to see Charlie’s expression as he faces forward again and continues walking, but he thinks that Charlie is probably smiling that dopey smile he gets when Owen indulges him.

They pass by the couch in the living room, skirt around the coffee table, and Charlie grumbles again at having to wait. “What’s taking so long?” the brunette whines.

“I’m sorry, I’m not the one dragging us all over the–” He stops short as Owen slowly opens the door and pulls Charlie after him. “Oh my god, Owen.”

Owen finds himself grinning as Charlie crowds behind him.

“Oh my god, Owen. Who even are you? The _balcony_?”

It’s a little risqué and more public than he’s comfortable with. But Charlie’s eyes sparkling in the light coming off the buildings; Jeremy’s sleeping down the hall from the kitchen and Charlie gets loud when Owen kisses him just so. And they're on a higher floor, so no one can _really_ see them.

Before Owen can take another step, Charlie sandwiches his face between his hands, squishing his cheeks, forcing Owen to look at him.

“You brought to the balcony to make out? Semi-public?” Charlie’s voice is highly questioning, like he’s trying to figure something very important out.

“Yes…?” The word is higher than usual at the end and he raises an eyebrow, trying to gauge Charlie’s reaction in just the low light of the sleeping city.

“I love you _so much._ How are you real?”

Owen grins again, his cheeks squishing even more under Charlie’s hands, and then his palms are finding Charlie’s waist and pulling him in until he’s flush against the line of his body. The hands on his cheeks brush back through the ends of Owen’s hair, arms wrapping around his neck. He breathes out, a gentle little tremor, and leans in, and then they’re kissing.

He walks Charlie backwards, further onto the balcony, before he turns to slide the door shut behind him, hand fumbling before it finds its mark. Charlie kisses up his neck and back to his mouth as he turns around.

Charlie hums against his mouth happily, half a chuckle, and then sighs and Owen can feel the way he melts into him, the way Charlie lays himself against Owen’s chest and holds on tight. Owen slides one hand up and under the back of Charlie’s flannel, pressing his palm to the delicious hollow between his shoulder blades, warm skin under his hand, and relishing the sound of approval that purrs in Charlie’s throat.

“Would this be considered ‘special treatment?’” Charlie breathes out as Owen settles down into one of the shitty foldup chairs left by the previous tenants of the apartment and pulls Charlie onto his lap. It creaks under their combined weight, but doesn't break. He quickly slides the flannel off of Charlie’s shoulders and kisses the line of his jaw as Charlie’s fingers make quick work on the buttons on Owen’s jacket.

“Well,” Owen murmurs, his mouth moving slowly towards the corner of his jaw and then down along the elegant line of Charlie’s neck, “you’re special to me.”

Charlie sighs, tipping his head back as his hands wrench open the last of the jacket and then slide sensually down Owen’s chest. “I bet you say that to all of your make out boys,” he says, voice airy, teasing again.

“Just one.” Heat burns through Owen like a shot of hard liquor when he opens his mouth and is rewarded with a throaty sound, vibrating there against his tongue. He gently uses his fingers to climb the vertebra of Charlie’s spine, skin warm and almost humming against his. Slow enough to heighten the anticipation, but quick enough to ease his own desperation.

“Who–Who is he?” Charlie demands indignantly, playfully, but it’s weak and breathless and it has Owen’s stomach sinking deeper in on itself.

“You don’t know him,” he says, working open-mouthed kisses back up to Charlie’s cheek.

Charlie laughs at that, almost too loud and Owen’s heart trips over itself again, falling the way it does whenever Charlie exists in any proximity to him. And it seems impossible, that someone like Charlie with his unending kindness and his selfless approach to love could want someone like Owen, who’s a tight knot of anxiety and nerves and a little bit of tension behind walls put up to protect himself. His hands and mouth become a little more hurried, a little more wanting, gripping at the hot skin beneath his touch and murmuring silent confessions against bitten red lips.

Charlie then cups Owen’s jaw, slowing him down, guiding him in for a more tender kiss. His voice is so gentle and unbearably fond that Owen can scarcely breathe. “Hey, O, we got time.”

They do have time. And Owen makes every last second count.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone wants to send me Chowen prompts (no nsfw plz), hit me up at of-pine-trees-and-campfires on Tumblr. I will try to get to them while writing this and the ABO fic. I also take requests for the ABO fic, but this fic is all planned out.


	4. Show Me...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takes places during filming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Charlie is all flirty all the time, but Owen just *knows* how to make him go soft and meltey and flushed.

Owen feels eyes on him as he puts the last dish on the drying rack. He turns around to find Charlie staring at him with those big blue eyes.

“Can I help you?”

Charlie nods at Owen curtly. “Yes,” he says.

“Okay…?” Owen raises an eyebrow, prompting a response.

There’s a long pause, and then: “You were looking at me. The whole time, you were staring at me,” Charlie says, as though it’s a proper answer to Owen’s confusion, which it sort of is. He flourishes with one hand. “Staring, is a better word, actually. _The whole time,_ which is–anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that you’re not subtle.”

Owen merely smiles. Charlie's talking specifically about tonight during Kenny's end-of-day notes, but there's other times. When they've paused filming for a reset or in the catering tent or when they're just hanging out. Owen can't help but look at him. As Charlie-as-Luke, he's cute and focused entirely on acting like he's in love with Maddie-as-Julie... and it's the same way he looks at Owen whenever they switch their characters off and Luke's in-love look turns into Charlie's in-love look at Owen. There are tiny, almost invisible freckles on the bridge of his nose from all the time they've spent on days off in the weak winter sun. Everything about him is honest and his eyes are remarkably blue.

Owen wonders, briefly, if it’s something he should be embarrassed about. He’s not. “Does it make you uncomfortable?” he asks, tucking his hands into his pockets casually. They're hanging out on the kitchen of the apartment, empty plates from a late dinner on the rack— Charlie cooked so Owen cleaned, as usual. Charlie leans against the wall next to the hallway between the kitchen and the living room, his blue eyes sparkling.

“What kind of question is that?” Charlie asks, and it’s almost teasing. “Where is your shame? Aren’t you scandalized at the thought of being caught red-handed? As far as everyone else is concerned, it’s only been a week since we started dating, and you look at _nothing_ else.”

Owen replies without hesitation. “We’re both not subtle. Everyone’s known for a while. But I can stop if you want me to.”

Charlie’s gaze becomes laser-focused. That’s not what he wants at all, and Owen knows it. “Well… why?”

“Why?”

“Why do you stare?” he clarifies expectantly.

He’s really fishing for it today, isn’t he? Owen’s mouth quirks at the side, indulging Charlie, because honestly, what else can he do? “I like the way you look.”

Charlie is extremely satisfied by the answer, evidenced by the look of giddy bliss on his face, and it makes Owen feel bold, as these things always do. He takes a step forward, away from the sink, heat blazing through him when Charlie stays put and maintains eye contact. Owen thinks he could drown, thinks he could happily die there, in the ocean of his eyes.

“I knew it,” Charlie grins, mirroring Owen with a step backwards.

“Of course you did; I’ve told you before,” Owen says plainly and his stomach flutters. He’s told him a thousand times and he’ll tell him a thousand more.

Charlie raises an eyebrow at that. He’s teasing again. “I’m sorry, told me what?”

Owen rolls his eyes, smothering a laugh. “Charlie, what is this about?”

Charlie takes another step back and his gaze remains fixed on Owen in that come-hither way that he’s perfected over the last several months. “What? I’m just wondering if there’s something you wanna share with the class.”

Owen follows him, something warm delighting deep in his stomach when Charlie’s back meets the wall that separates the kitchen from the living room, when the look on Charlie’s face is undiluted anticipation. Owen wants to reach out and touch him, but he keeps his hands tucked into his pockets for now, perfectly content to draw this out as long as Charlie will let him. The brunette’s love language is touch, so he’s never one to keep his hands off his friends and _especially_ Owen. He’s always touching him in some way: kissing his shoulder during morning meetings on set or at the kitchen counter; holding his hand when they walk through the streets, still going unrecognized; cuddling into him during movie nights enough for Maddie to coo at them and for Jeremy to tell them to stop stealing his and Carolynn’s thunder. So, keeping his hands to himself is just yet another way to tease Charlie.

“You know,” Charlie says conversationally, tucking his hands behind his back, “this is like, second best case scenario. A part of me maybe worried that you were going to tell me I just had something on my face, like last time. Because you like to torture me, apparently.”

“You make it easy.” The warmth in Owen’s stomach spreads up to his chest, out towards his fingers. He chuckles, shifting his weight, knowing that he’s standing really close. Maybe too close, but maybe not close enough, either. “What’s the first-best?” he asks.

Charlie relaxes against the wall, smiling sweetly up at Owen, his face still flushed. The bright, keen look in his eyes is exhilarating; it steals Owen’s breath away. “Considering the way you’ve been eyeing me— a known four-course meal— like a starving man, I thought you might kiss me.”

“Is that what you want?” Owen’s eyes drag over Charlie’s open expression, along the slope of his nose, over the dip of his cupid’s bow, shiny with ChapStick. He tracks the edge of Charlie’s jaw with a heavy gaze, examining the length of his neck, the sweet spot against his pulse where it meets the fabric of his shirt, the beauty mark that's nestled in the shadow of his collarbone that's always been sensitive. It’s true; he’d looked good enough to eat all day in Luke's muscle tees and just-woke-up hair. 

Charlie tilts his head to the side a little, but his voice isn’t as strong as before. “Was I not being obvious enough?”

Owen leans in close, removing one hand from his pocket to brace it against the wall near Charlie’s shoulder. He still holds back from touching him; he’ll make Charlie want it enough to take before he gives in. The sound of his voice is deep and warm, the way he knows will crawl under Charlie’s skin and stoke the heat there. “Where do you want me to kiss you?”

Charlie drops his gaze, letting out a big breath. It almost has enough feeling behind it to be a groan.

“Y-You are _lethal._ Did you know that? Christ.”

“Mm.” Charlie smells good. Owen’s eyes flutter closed at the warm, scent of citrus and musky soap, the potency of it. He’d laugh at how easily Charlie folded under the rumbling thunder of his words if he wasn’t feeling so drunk on the proximity. As it is, he just feels happy. That they’re here, like this.

That Charlie thinks of him, and wants this too.

“Uncle! I-I’m calling uncle.” Charlie’s voice is kind of wobbly and rough around the edges. Catching and snagging on nearly every word. “Man, I should–I should know better than to start this shit with you. I never win.”

Owen thinks it’s because Charlie wants him to win. “Charlie.”

“What?”

“Where?” Owen breathes out, opening his eyes just enough to see Charlie still looking down. “Show me.”

Charlie swallows and then looks up, his hair brushing against Owen’s. His eyes are dark in Owen’s shadow, but no less blue. “You’re going to kill me.”

Owen merely hums, a low, low thing, half-amused. “Show me.”

Charlie doesn’t move for a long moment, and Owen is almost certain that he’s going to insist that he get some breathing room, that maybe they pick this up later or something. But then he slowly raises his hand and taps the side of his neck, just above the collar of his shirt, twice, with two fingers. A small freckle sits, or beauty mark, Owen doesn't care. “Here, maybe,” he says.

Owen leans in, the tip of his nose skimming across the warm stretch of Charlie’s pulse before he presses his mouth there, chaste, but lingering, feeling the slight rise of the mole. Charlie shivers under the touch, and hunger gnaws at the pit of Owen’s stomach when he already hears the sound of approval that catches at the back of Charlie’s throat. He pulls back before he can get carried away, before he becomes insatiable.

“Where else?”

Charlie just looks for a moment, and then taps his chin. “Here,” he whispers.

Owen obliges.

“Where else?”

“Here.”

The other side of his neck.

“Here.”

The edge of his jaw. Charlie’s breath stutters again there and it’s so good that it has Owen humming.

“Where else?” Owen’s mouth skims along now, gently, not bothering to pull away.

“Here.”

The corner of his mouth, the dimples that show when he smiles his widest. He parts his lips slightly at the contact, his breath warm against Owen’s mouth when he stays there longer than any other place Charlie has asked him to kiss. Still chaste. Both of them just reveling in the contact and heat of it.

“Anywhere else?” Owen murmurs, and his hand finally finds Charlie’s hip, his thumb brushing tenderly over the soft spot above the bone. He can feel the heat of Charlie's skin through his shirt, a t-shirt too thin for the weather outside but perfect for the heat rising between them.

Charlie responds by reaching up and cupping Owen’s face with both hands, guiding him down to his mouth at last. Owen sighs into him, and every sensation is so bright and warm and _Charlie_ that he hardly even feels like himself anymore. He’d live here, if he could. He waited for so long for even the slightest hope of kissing Charlie that the act of it seems like nothing short of a religious experience every single time. He’s waited so long for _Charlie_ without even knowing it that everything before he knew the other boy feels like a half-life compared to this.

His hands find Charlie’s waist, holding him steady against the wall as Charlie pulls Owen’s weight into him a little frantically by the collar of his jacket, desperate for more contact. His mouth opens and he can feel it the moment Charlie’s knees go weak under him; Owen laughs against his lips and pulls away marginally, pressing their foreheads together, catching his breath.

“I know it’s been like three months,” Charlie says unevenly, eyes still closed, and Owen thinks _two months, three weeks, and five days_ while absently admiring his long eyelashes, “but I still don’t know how you, of all people, are this good at kissing.”

Owen reaches up and brushes some of the messy hair back from Charlie’s cheek, watching as his eyes flutter open slowly, as though he’s still savoring that kiss, even moments later. “You promised me you wouldn’t make this into a competition,” Owen says, and the words are exasperated but the tone of his voice is only fond. “Let me be good at things that make you feel good, Charlie.”

“Please, by all means! Don’t let my ego stop you.” Owen laughs again and leans back in.


	5. Date Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takes place during filming

“What’s up, buttercup?”

Owen glances up from the book he’s been absorbed in, blinking in surprise at Charlie’s sudden appearance, blinking again when Charlie plops down on his lap like he owns it and snatches the book out of Owen’s hands.

“Hey, I was—”

Charlie makes sure to put his toilet paper bookmark in place before he places it on the coffee table. “Nope, nope, nope, I don’t want to hear it! It’s eleven o’clock on a Saturday night and I wanna take you out.” He loops an arm around Owen’s neck and makes himself comfortable. “You’ve been looking at that dumb book all night. It’s time for you to look at _me._ ” They’ve only been back at the apartment for maybe 45 minutes because it had been a late night, again, and Owen just wanted to relax with a good book. Now he’s got a lap full of Charlie, which he doesn’t mind, but he was in a really good place in his book.

Owen sighs but curls his arm around Charlie’s waist and holds him close. He’d forgotten that tonight is date night. He’s exhausted from a full work week, but Charlie still insists that they carve out time for themselves when they can. There aren’t many places open this late that aren’t clubs and Owen has no desire to go to one when he has to be up early in the morning. Yet Charlie somehow manages to make something out of what they have here in the apartment.

Truthfully, he’s glad for the distraction. He’s been running around in his own head for hours now, worrying about what scenes they’re doing tomorrow and if he’s going to mess up somehow, a thought always in the back of his mind. Nothing makes him feel better like Charlie does.

Especially when he smells this good.

He notices, at last, that Charlie is wearing a dark shirt that fits him attractively, sleeves cut off, as usual, his purposefully tousled hair smelling strongly like the sweet shampoo Owen knows is his in the shared shower. His face is all dewy and clean, freshly tended to, blue eyes bright as twin stars. He’d gone out of his way to make himself look good for whatever he has planned, had probably waited for Owen a while before intervening and drawing his attention from the book to himself.

“You’re so demanding,” Owen says, dragging his gaze over Charlie once more.

Charlie smirks because Owen isn’t subtle. “Yeah, well, you’re the sucker who gives me whatever I want so—”

Owen cups his hand around the back of Charlie’s neck and pulls him in gently for a kiss. He means for it to be short, chaste, enough to satisfy the boy in his lap, but Charlie tightens the arm he’s got slung around Owen. He shifts so that even more of his weight drapes itself over Owen’s chest, pressing him back into the cushions of the couch and sighs into Owen’s mouth, parting his lips and dragging his teeth across Owen’s bottom lip slow and mild and insistent.

It’s hotter than Owen expected, and it goes on forever, like Charlie is happy to sit right here in the living room for the rest of his life with his tongue down Owen’s throat. It’s exactly the kind of kiss Owen earns late at night when they’re slick with ardor, sated desire thick and humid between them. He groans at Charlie’s measured eagerness and the hand that smooths over his chest in promising little circles, breathing him in and growing hungrier for it.

It makes him tilt further into the kiss but that’s when Charlie breaks away, firmly pushing against Owen’s sturdy shoulder, eyes closed for a long moment before he slowly opens them, gaze hazy and muddled. He looks at Owen through those half-lidded eyes, dark and blue and close, and licks his lips.

“I know you’re stressing out… as usual,” he whispers, catching his breath. “If you’d rather skip out and do some scene work, I’ll help. I just thought—”

Owen tightens his arm around Charlie’s waist and runs his other hand along his thigh and hip in long, soothing strokes. “You look so good, Charlie.” His voice is low, a rumble in his chest, and he watches with deep, bottomless satisfaction as Charlie’s cheeks bloom with color. “So good.”

Charlie smiles sweetly, pleased. “Yeah?”

Owen squeezes his hip and hums in affirmation, admiring the sprinkle of freckles on the crests of his pink cheeks. “Should I change?” Owen asks him.

Charlie inspects him. Owen’s wearing a button-up shirt over a random tank top. Charlie pulls away slightly to begin undoing the buttons down the front to expose the black shirt underneath; Owen thinks he might be enjoying it because he takes his time. When he’s done with the buttons, he works on rolling up the sleeves just enough to show off Owen’s forearms and then runs his fingers through Owen’s hair a few times for good measure.

“No,” Charlie finally says. “You suck for looking extremely sexy without trying, by the way.”

“I think you’re biased.” Owen grins and presses a quick kiss to the line of Charlie’s jaw. “Where are we going tonight?” Two weeks ago, when they had downtime, Charlie had taken him to the garden nearby and they’d had a midnight picnic. The week before that, they’d gone to a museum and held hands as they walked through, anonymous in the crowd. They’d played “root, boot, loot,” which was a game Maddie told them she saw on Tumblr. They’d even gone to the local shelter and walked dogs for fun on a full day off—although Jeremy and Maddie had been annoyed they didn’t let them know.

Charlie flashes him a thousand-watt smile and slides off his lap. “Camping.”

Owen’s heart skips a beat and he’s not entirely sure how Charlie pulled that one off, but he’s eager to see. He follows Charlie from the room, slipping his hand into Charlie’s. They just stand there, like idiots, in the living room, until Charlie presses in close to give him a kiss, lingering and lingering, until he pulls away with a smile.

Owen pulls back marginally and grins, the space between them practically nonexistent. “What was that for?”

“Just felt like it,” Charlie tells him softly, looking up at him with his big, blue eyes, sincere in a way that Owen isn’t prepared for. “C’mon.” Charlie tugs his hand and pulls him into the kitchen area, oblivious to the way he’s left Owen standing there, aching after the rare glimpse of _Charlie,_ at the center of everything. Aching, because that look alone had been full of such affection that Owen feels it still, moments later, as they pass the bathroom and slip into the room that’s now a guest room. Charlie doesn’t sleep in there anymore, so they’ve kind of pushed the bed to the furthest corner of the room, the desk next to it. Both rooms are decent sized, Owen’s room with a queen and this room with a twin—Owen likes to starfish so he got the bigger bed… now he starfishes with Charlie wrapped around him like a koala.

Owen steps inside to see a makeshift fort of sorts, with heaps of spare blankets and pillows from the closet, tented like a—well, like a tent, against the side of the bed, facing the two giant glass windows. Owen wonders when he did all this, because they did get back a while ago and he was so into his book. He didn’t think they’d even had half this stuff in the apartment, but Charlie could have had help from Jeremy and Maddie before today.

Besides the fort, there is a candle, unlit, two thermoses, and a bag probably full of whatever food Charlie thought would be appropriate. There’s a faint scent of pine needles hanging in the air, courtesy of a cheap car air freshener shaped like an evergreen and the smell of it hits him like a thousand distant memories all at once. The only light comes from the city spread out in front of them.

“Camping,” Owen says slowly, taking it all in. He can feel Charlie watching him, but he’s still trying to recover from that look and from all the apparent effort Charlie made to take Owen on a date, even in the middle of the night in their small rented apartment in a strange city. His heart hurts. Sometimes, he spends so much time caught up in how much he loves Charlie because that’s—for months before they were a _them,_ that’s all he had. That’s all he knew.

He forgets that Charlie loves him fiercely, just like this. It’s big and deep and _too much_ and it’s everything. It’s everything.

“Do you like it?” Charlie asks him, tugging on his hand like a little kid to get his attention. “I know —well, you talked about how you used to go camping all the time with your dad and this isn’t the same thing but it’s the closest I could get to it. We don’t have time to go hiking with our schedule or until our next day off, which isn’t for a while. We’re busy with that and the band and the, well, the everything. I get it! Me too, but just—I wanted to give you something, at least for a little while.”

Owen just looks at him in the shadows; Charlie’s eyes are bluer and brighter than the Oklahoma summer sky as he waits for Owen’s reaction. The scale of what Charlie wanted to do for him sinks in slow, and then quick, like a well-timed dance step and then he’s simply stunned that Charlie remembered something they briefly spoke about months ago so well. And he forgets—he _forgets_ —but how— _how_ —does that happen when Charlie is so selfless and vulnerable and _his?_

“Charlie.” Owen’s voice burns against the dark like an oil lamp.

Charlie stands there, frozen from the intensity for a moment before his hand tightens around Owen’s and he drops his gaze. “Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m awesome and all that,” he says softly. “C’mon. Let’s sit down. I can add some ambiance. There’s probably one of those ten-hour YouTube videos that sound like crickets and stuff? I’ve been camping but, like, never inside.”

Owen steps towards the slapstick tent and lowers himself down onto the pile of pillows, pulling Charlie after him. “Why are you so nervous?” he asks Charlie, quietly amused.

“You’re an intense guy,” Charlie babbles on, filterless, as he settles next to Owen and picks up the lighter to light the candle. A pretend campfire. He still avoids looking at Owen, but their fingers are laced together on Owen’s lap. “The way you look at me, I-I—It’s a lot sometimes, okay? But like, in a really, really, _really_ good way, you know?”

“You told me to look at you.”

“Yeah. And don’t ever stop.”

Charlie looks up at him from under his eyelashes and a tiny, crooked smile quirks at his lips despite his nerves, the light from the candle flickering across his face. Owen has to kiss him, now, before the fullness in his heart spills over and kills him, so he does. He doesn’t let himself get carried away, doesn’t let that hunger inside him yawn and consume; not yet, not until Charlie is the one crawling into his lap and pushing him back into the pillows.

After a moment, Charlie pulls away reluctantly and Owen stays close as his eyes flutter open slowly, so tender and so blue.

“You’re all I see, Charlie,” Owen tells him.

Charlie sighs—it shivers out of him in a tiny, uneven little whoosh and he offers up the loveliest smile, his eyes bright moons, rosy-cheeked and beautiful. Owen is more in love with him now than he was five seconds ago. Seeing Charlie pleased by Owen’s affection is a heady sort of rush that only inspires _more_ affection in him. His whole heart already rests with Charlie, but that doesn’t stop him from wanting to give and give and give and give.

Owen tilts his chin to press a delicate kiss to Charlie’s forehead and then draws away, still holding his hand hostage.

“You have such a soft and squishy marshmallow heart, Owen,” Charlie says, sounding both amused and enamored, humming happily as he nudges Owen’s thighs apart and settles between them with his back to Owen’s chest. “It’s a shame no one believes me when I tell people how sweet you are. Behind all the sarcasm and your sharp tongue.”

 _You like my sharp tongue,_ he wants to say, but Owen releases his hand and wraps his arms securely around his waist, leaning forward to drape some of his weight against Charlie and noses at the nape of his neck. He smells good here—there’s a hint of his body lotion, warm and intoxicating and sweet. So, so sweet. It brings Owen’s hunger back to the forefront of his mind. “No one else should see me this way,” he murmurs.

“Uh—no. This Owen is my Owen,” Charlie agrees immediately, and those words provoke something incredibly basic and carnal inside of him. Charlie seems oblivious to it, to the way Owen sighs out and presses his forehead to the back of his neck and tightens his arms around him. Instead, Charlie drags the discarded bag closer and opens the flap to reveal a container with chocolate chip cookies and a few other snacks. “There’s hot chocolate in the thermoses and I got this stuff to like, pretend we’re at least eating s’mores? But I don’t have any marshmallows. Maddie couldn’t find any on such short notice.” He pats Owen’s arm. "Guess that’s where you come in.”

Owen doesn’t move, but he grins wickedly against the top of Charlie’s spine, right where skin meets the hem of his shirt. “You gonna eat me, Charlie?”

Charlie flings a hand back to hit him in the shoulder. “Shut up!” he cries. “That’s not what I meant and you know it!”

It makes Owen laugh, right into the back of Charlie’s neck, and when he’s done, the silence between them stretches unusually long. That’s when there’s a sigh and then Charlie is pushing away the bag and leaning back against Owen, head propped up on his shoulder, arms holding Owen’s snugly to his waist. With the candle, the space around them is golden and flickering, the lights from taller skyscrapers shine into the apartment like stars.

“That’s the first time I’ve heard you laugh in weeks. Laughter that wasn’t sarcastic or for the camera or out of exhaustion,” Charlie says quietly, and there’s that loneliness again. Owen buries his face against the side of Charlie’s neck, his heartstrings effectively tugged on, almost painfully. A part of him feels like crying. “I’ve missed you, Owen.”

Owen sighs and noses at a freckle at the crook of Charlie’s shoulder. “Me too. Thank you for doing all this. How long did it take you?”

Charlie tilts his head to the side as if to offer up more of his skin. “A couple days to get everything together—Mads and Jer helped me get the food and candle and stuff— but I was showered and all set up here while you were reading. Oblivious. I liked it. Doing something for you, I mean.” He rubs his hands up and down the tops of Owen’s thighs slowly, to the knee and back, like he wants to indulge in the closeness they have right now just as much as Owen does. “I can’t wait 'til we can date like normal people. No super-long film schedules and being too tired to do anything. We could go camping for real or something.”

Owen begins to press kisses against Charlie’s skin, all the way up to the shell of his ear and back down, growing a little more languid, a little more open, with each one he drops. “I’m gonna do more than date you, Charlie,” Owen says between each one, his voice steady despite the snarl of desire caught in his throat like a fishhook.

Charlie lets out a breathless laugh and sags further against Owen’s chest. “Ha, I knew it.” He groans suddenly when Owen presses his tongue and then his teeth, gently, into his pulse, and lingers. “Owen.”

Owen only hums—backs off a little bit, shuffling his nose through the tiny hairs at the edge of Charlie’s hairline, his lips soft and undemanding as he runs them across skin and freckles. He’s content here; enjoys the way that Charlie relaxes into him, revels in the feeling that it’s just the two of them in the apartment, untouchable by anything and everything else.

“Did you have anything else planned?” Owen asks him, voice muffled against Charlie’s shoulder. He brings one hand up and tugs lightly at the collar of the shirt while his other slips beneath the hem at Charlie’s belly, pressing firmly against the hot, lean stretch of skin and muscle there.

“Stargazing,” Charlie mumbles, sounding drunk despite the fact all Owen’s really done is kiss his neck. It makes Owen thrill—sets a fire up under his skin like sparklers on New Year’s. It makes him want more. His selfless nature with Charlie is double-edged that way. The more he gives, the more he also wants to take. “But...b-but this is nice, too.”

“Okay.” Owen nuzzles against his pulse again, inclined to agree, fully appreciating the lap full of melted boy he’s got all gathered up against his chest. “Look at me so I can kiss you, Char.”

Charlie sighs and immediately turns his head, back still pressed to Owen’s chest as he reclines on Owen’s shoulder. His mouth splits with a dopey smile, eyes half-lidded, humming with glee when Owen’s hand smooths a warm, steady path up to his sternum and back down. “Don’t keep me waiting.”

Owen doesn’t. He angles his head and leans in to cover Charlie’s lips with his, slight and gentle before giving way to something a little more measured, with a little more pressure. Charlie begins to touch his thighs again, roaming up and down the tight fabric of Owen’s jeans slowly and the light touch makes him feel warmer than he ought to. With the hand not currently gripping Charlie beneath his shirt, Owen grabs Charlie’s chin and tilts him into the kiss, deepening the connection with a swipe of his tongue.

Charlie opens easily for him, as he always does, eager to please, eager to be pleased, unafraid of holding anything back. Owen cradles him close, entirely at Charlie’s mercy. He trembles despite leading the kiss, tasting Charlie’s satisfaction like sugar on his tongue. A harsh sound is torn from the base of his throat when Charlie reaches up and slides his fingers into his hair, still Alex-short, gripping to keep him exactly where he wants him. It stays slow, but the kiss turns hot and wet, and eventually, Charlie is twisting around in Owen’s arms, pulling Owen’s button-up off and pushing him back into the pillows.

Owen sighs beneath him, delighting in the slow slide of Charlie’s greedy hands over his arms and chest. He clamps his own hand down on the small of Charlie’s back, keeping them pressed together tightly, unwilling to allow any more space between them.

After that, he loses himself, for a while. Charlie takes his time, teasing sounds out of Owen like it’s his job, eventually rolling them over so that Owen’s weight smothers him against the bed of pillows. He seems to revel in the heat, in the security, kissing Owen slow and forever pulling him in closer with hands that are just shy of desperate. They run across his back and waist firmly; they slide through his hair and tangle there like that’s where they’re meant to be.

Owen settles happily, drunkenly, against Charlie’s hips, bracketed by the thick of his thighs, one of his hands pushing up Charlie’s shirt like he’s got all the time in the world to take it off. He hums when Charlie pants against his lips, palming at his chest under his shirt, too.

“Could do this forever with you,” Charlie whispers out breathlessly, lost somewhere between Owen’s mouth and Owen’s hand.

Owen almost has to laugh deliriously against the pillow of Charlie’s slick mouth and Charlie groans when Owen curls his hand into a firm grip, low on his hip. He smirks down at him in the warm, half-lit shadows. “Promise?”

“Yeah,” Charlie sighs, blinking at him slow and lazy like a self-satisfied cat. That wide smile of his comes back as they catch their breath and the blue of his eyes burns right into Owen like a sunset. He reaches up to gently brush some of Owen’s hair back from his face, resting his palm at the cut of his jaw. “Baby. Wanna be with you. You’re the only thing I’ve ever been so sure of.”

The sweet sincerity of Charlie’s words has Owen taking a mental step back, his heart flipping in his chest. The edge of his smile turns softer, the lust that smolders low in his belly giving way to a warmth that glows through him like a sun. He runs a thumb along the crest of Charlie’s cheek and commits it to memory, suddenly so full, he doesn’t know how to do anything else.

“Just so you know, this usually isn’t what camping is like,” Owen teases softly, making Charlie laugh.

“What, you mean tents aren’t for getting handsy and confessing your undying love?” Charlie grins and wraps his arms around Owen’s waist. “Whatever, who cares; you love it. You love _me._ ” His eyes twinkle a bit like stars when he says that last line, and the self-assured way he insists on it really does something lovely to Owen’s heart.

“It’s not like you’ve left me any other choice,” Owen says.

“All a part of my evil plan, of course.”

“Of course.”

Charlie’s grin softens and he leans into Owen’s touch when he strokes his hand against his face.

“Love you, Owen.”

Owen smiles and closes the distance between them once more.


	6. Someday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takes place the day before the the boys fly off to Hawaii.

So. Owen had these... _plans._

A lot of it was typical stuff. Small stuff. Like, he had plans to read this long list of novels he’d accumulated over the course of the past year, most on recommendation from Maddie and Jadah and Jeremy and even a few from Charlie. He had plans to ask Carolynn for a few cooking pointers since he was kinda shitty when it came to variety in the kitchen; he doesn't ask Charlie because Charlie's a magician in the kitchen and he wants to surprise the other boy next time they live together. He had plans to move out of his parents’ house and find a nice place that maybe, eventually, Charlie can move in with him someday that’s more house than apartment in LA or a place in Vancouver they rented while filming the first season.

But...there were some big plans, too. Huge plans.

Like: visiting Charlie in Canada.

Like: having a very important conversation with Charlie’s mother, about a very important, very top-secret question he wanted to ask.

Like: asking Charlie this question.

He didn’t have everything figured out, but he wasn’t really worried about that. Owen’s always made plans, stressed and needing structure to function… but not when it comes to Charlie. He’s never made plans when it comes to Charlie. The guy makes him do spontaneous things, since Charlie’s never really been the type of guy to make plans. Impulse and reckless abandon had never been Owen’s speed, but he’d learned that he was capable of a lot of things he never knew he could be, after Charlie.

Like: gentleness.

Like: loving someone, and being loved in return.

Like: making _permanent plans_ that involve someone else.

It is easy, to want to do these things. Charlie, with his thousand-watt smile and his adorably tousled hair, turns his big sea glass green, sparkly baby-I-love-ya eyes on him and that’s it. He doesn’t even have to ask. Owen just—wants.

But as someone in the TV industry, there’s a lot of chaos that comes with that— plans are always subject to change. When this whole COVID thing happened, plans had to change. Charlie’s stuck in Canada while Owen’s home with his parents. His parents are great, his family’s great, but he’s going just a little bit crazy being stuck in quarantine.

Sure, there’s Instagram Lives that the four of them kind of popcorn around and he’s done a few with Savannah to keep himself from just doing them with Charlie. Zoom interviews are fun but he misses being around his friends. Misses Maddie trying to braid his short Alex-style hair, misses rocking out with Jeremy… but, mostly, he misses Charlie. Misses his hugs and hearing him laugh without the distortion of phone audio. Right now, Owen’s first and only priority, with COVID, is to get out of his house and somehow find his way back to Charlie. Every night, he dreams of waking up in a cabin in the woods or by the beach—Charlie in the sunshine is one of his favorite sight that doesn’t involve a bed, followed closely by Charlie surrounded by snow— smothered beneath a sleepy, heartfelt boy who wears a ring on his third finger and a dog as big as a horse, lined in the gold of the morning sunshine, dust motes twinkling like stars.

They’ll get there someday.

That’s the plan, at least.

Owen pulls away from those thoughts as he steps out into the airport. His mask is uncomfortable on his face and he regrets not wearing one of the cute ones Maddie sent to him in a care package to keep him sane. It’s kind of late—there’s not many people in the airport these days in general, but it’s almost like a ghost town at night. Which is nice because he's not mobbed by fans. He catches a taxi to the hotel he and Charlie are sharing before their flight to Hawaii. Charlie wanted to meet at the airport, but Owen knew he’d be getting a very intense greeting. Couldn’t be having that in public. Owen gets out of the taxi and thanks the driver before he heads inside. Before the flight, Charlie told him their room number, having gotten to the hotel the day before. He won't fly without Owen. 

_307_

He knocks on the door and it flings open. He’s expecting to crawl into bed with a sleepy Charlie, cuddle up against him, and fall back asleep, but, well—

The wind is suddenly knocked out of him as a flash of blue barrels into his chest and collapses on top of him, slamming the door with a fist, before he hits the floor just inside of the hotel room. He doesn’t have any time at all to recover because Charlie is there, pressing kisses to his cheeks and chin and any part he can reach, hands gripping fiercely at Owen’s shoulders as he crouches over him, unforgiving in his crowding presence, though Owen remains totally unbothered by the close proximity. They really shouldn’t be doing this right now because it’s a _pandemic_ and Charlie’s an _idiot_.

“Charlie,” he laughs, one arm pinned by Charlie’s knee, the other reaching up to grab at his waist. “Charlie—”

Charlie doesn’t even pause, expression a total blur, as he rips the mask off Owen’s face, one of the shitty ear-loops snapping, and then leans in desperately, hands cupping Owen’s face firmly as he presses his mouth against his. The hand on Charlie’s waist curls, applying more pressure and snaking an arm around as Owen struggles to free his other arm. His eyes flutter shut, groaning as heat explodes under the collar of his sweatshirt— one of Charlie’s from their paint-and-wine/juice night— when Charlie licks his bottom lip aggressively and bites down. He forgets all about the pandemic and the fact that they’re lying on a hotel floor and they really shouldn’t be kissing and breathing into each other’s mouths. He doesn’t care because Charlie’s _here_. Well, he's been here but Owen's here and Charlie's here and they're together.

Charlie seems to approve of that sound, his knees sliding further apart in a wide straddle as he melts to rest the majority weight on top of Owen, freeing the trapped arm. His hands stay near Owen’s face, brushing away the spill of hair around his ears, long because he refuses to let his mom or sister cut it, and holding the strong line of his jaw.

Owen gathers him closer as he reaches up with his other arm now to grip the back of Charlie’s neck, eagerly returning the kiss with scrunched eyebrows and a starburst of pleasure burning low in his belly.

After a moment, Charlie separates their mouths with a humid pant against Owen’s lips for air, but he dazedly pulls Charlie back down with another groan, a part of him going absolutely wild when Charlie responds with a whimper caught in the back of his throat. His mouth is hot and wet, opening easily to Owen, welcoming the attention, drowning in it, the pliant lines of his body begging for it.

Mindless and wrapped up in Charlie, Owen rolls them to settle his weight over Charlie, hips resting in the cradle of his thighs, and that’s when he loses himself. For a short while, they lay there tangled up on the floor, kissing like they’ll never get another chance. Charlie’s arms end up around Owen’s neck, hands buried in his hair as he lets Owen ravish him into a drunken mess of unsteady heartbeats and sweet little gasps of pleasure.

Once he feels mostly satisfied, Owen pulls back slightly, only enough to admire the way Charlie’s eyes flutter open, low-lidded and dark, parted mouth shiny and pink and perfect. He’s gorgeous all the time, but there’s something especially wonderful about a Charlie that is looking up at him with a greedy sort of expression, like he can’t stand the space between them and is thinking about asking for less of it.

It’s been eight months since he’s seen Charlie in person for more than the few hours, when he came to see him in Seattle before they parted ways again. And his mom was there, so he couldn’t exactly greet his boyfriend the way he wanted to in front of or with her around the corner.

“You’re late,” Charlie murmurs breathlessly, thighs bracketing Owen’s hips firmly in an attempt to keep him close.

Owen runs his hand through the wild ends of Charlie’s hair with as much gentleness he can before curling his fingers and kissing the delicate line of Charlie’s eyebrow. “Sorry,” he says softly. His flight had been delayed because of a short, surprise squall in Oklahoma. So he'd told Charlie he was going to be late but that doesn't mean the brunette wasn't freaking out, sending him texts every five minutes to make sure he was okay.

“I tried calling you.”

“I still haven’t turned airplane mode off.”

“I was worried.” Charlie’s expression clouds over and there’s a crack in his voice. Charlie’s never really liked planes, has a fear of flying, and Owen knows this; it’s one of the reasons why the two of them road-tripped up to Vancouver and down to Jeremy's wedding and to Florida. “You can’t—you can’t—”

Owen leans down and kisses him quiet for a long, sweet moment. Charlie slides his hands from Owen’s hair down his sweatshirt and then down to his waist with a sigh, holding him there as though to steady himself. Owen separates after he’s sure he’s eliminated that fragile thing in Charlie’s voice, nosing his way down to then kiss his jaw. They should really be getting up off the floor… there’s a bed _right there_ , but he doesn’t want to let go of Charlie. Doesn’t want to lose this connection.

“How was your flight?” Owen asks against his skin.

“Sucked. Hate flying,” Charlie whispers into the ridge of Owen’s eyebrow. “Missed you, Owen.”

Owen kisses up to his ear. “We found each other again.”

“We did promise.”

That makes Owen warm on the inside. He leans back to smile down at Charlie. “Thank you.”

Charlie responds by sticking out his tongue. “Maybe you should take a page out of my book.” 

Owen scoffs and reaches down, inching his hand under Charlie’s T-shirt, one of the rare ones without the sleeves and sides missing, wishing that it was bare so that he could feel the heat of his skin against his palm. “What? Freaking out the whole time and texting me every ten minutes until I had to turn on airplane mode? I bet I’m gonna turn it off and find a million and one messages from you alone.”

He’s rewarded with narrowed eyes and a shiver from the gentle touches on his rib cage. “Babe, you were _late._ I lost, like, ten years of my life tonight waiting on you to show up. You’re just lucky you did, or I’d have to kick your— _ah_.” His eyes flutter as Owen runs the hand back down his side, and dips his fingers just barely beneath the waistband of his pants, shifting the weight of his hips. Charlie tilts his head back, arching into the touch, and Owen can’t help himself when he leans down and opens his mouth against the delicious skin of Charlie’s throat.

“I’m always gonna come back to you, Charlie,” Owen tells him. “You don’t have to worry about that.”

“I know,” Charlie says, breath heavy as he smiles. “You still gotta make an honest man out of me.”

Owen chuckles and presses one last kiss into his skin before pulling away and sitting back on his knees. “Who said I was ever gonna do that?”

Charlie props himself up on his elbows and he looks—Jesus, he’s cute. His hair is mussed, mouth still bright, bitten-pink, eyes glittering with equal parts mirth and exaggerated outrage. His shirt has been pushed up, exposing a pretty stretch of a lean stomach, his legs parted obscenely wide and open on either side of Owen. He wants to lean back in and press Charlie into the floor, the hunger and the heat low in his belly wild with desire.

“I know you wanna marry me, Owen,” Charlie accuses playfully, pointing a finger in Owen’s direction, eyebrows sharp over his pretty eyes. “Someday, I’ll get you to admit to it. Mark my words.”

Owen flashes him a toothy grin, thinking about Canada, about Charlie’s family, about that one little question. He thinks that Charlie says that stuff to tease him, says it because he knows that they’re in love and it’s the real kind, the forever kind… even though they’ve only been together for a handful of months, been apart more than they've been together, known each other for a little longer than that. Thinks that Charlie doesn’t really expect it to happen any time soon. They’re still young but Owen already knows he’s never going to want anyone else.

It’s always been Charlie, it always will be Charlie, from the first to the last.

A blush rises into the crest of Charlie’s cheeks as he pulls his hand back and then pushes up into a sitting position. He reaches towards Owen and cups his face in his hands, squishing his cheeks.

“Stop looking at me like that, Joyner; my poor heart can’t take it.”

Owen can feel how soft he is, how Charlie’s flustered little statement only makes him softer. He circles Charlie’s wrists with his fingers and pulls his hands away so that he can kiss Charlie’s palms reverently.

Charlie stares and groans, cheeks growing ruddier by the second. “Babyyyy.”

“I need to tell my parents I made it. Turn off my airplane mode so I can get your million text messages,” Owen whispers, kissing up Charlie’s arm slowly as he leans in. “And then I need to get something to eat.” His mouth presses just above the crook of Charlie’s elbow. “And get out of these gross plane clothes.” Charlie’s bicep. “And take a shower.” His shoulder. “And then,” —his throat— “I think we should go to bed. We do have to get up early tomorrow for our flight.”

Charlie drops his head to the side and shudders through a breathless laugh, basking in the attention.

“I’ll do anything you want if it means me getting up off this floor.”

“ _You_ attacked _me._ ” Owen kisses his cheek.

“Maybe, but you flattened me like a steam roller when you flipped us over.” Kisses Charlie’s lovely mouth, watches as Charlie’s eyes flutter again when he lingers.

“You weren’t complaining.” Owen draws back slightly and smirks.

Charlie grins crookedly. “No, I really, really wasn’t.”

Owen laughs at that and then finally makes it back to his feet, pulling Charlie up after him. Immediately, because he can’t help himself, he leans in for another kiss, and then another, a little zip of pleasure lighting up his spine when Charlie leans into him and makes a soft noise in the back of his throat.

“I have a question to ask you,” Owen whispers between their mouths.

Charlie hums, half-gone. “Lay it on me, pretty boy.”

Owen, distantly, thinks about Canada, thinks about Charlie’s family. Thinks about COVID, and how far they are from the end of it, and how he wants to do this the right way because that’s what Charlie deserves. He cups Charlie’s face and kisses him with a little more pressure. “It can wait.”

He meets no resistance. “Okay.” A sigh, sweet and light. “Okay.”

Maybe they lay there kissing for another ten minutes before Charlie is finally able to break the spell and let Owen get washed up and check in with his parents and shower and get ready for bed. The brunette stands outside the bathroom door, a small smile on his face, and drags Owen over to the single hotel bed, flushed and starry-eyed, scolding him for being so damn insatiable.

Maybe that had been a part of Owen’s plan, too.


	7. One More Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takes place on the last night of their Hawaii trip before they part again.

Owen breaks the silence vibrating in the room quietly with a long, drawn out sigh, easing some of the tension in his shoulders. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Charlie slump a little further over the table, too, like that one breath has released him from a prison of his own. He reaches over and takes Charlie’s hand where it rests in a curled fist against the top of his thigh; he draws it into his own lap and slowly opens Charlie’s fist with his thumb, gentle and methodical.

Charlie responds to the touches easily despite still looking closed off, avoiding eye contact. His hand opens up like a flower in spring, and Owen threads his fingers through the spaces between Charlie’s, pressing their palms together flat like two pieces of paper. Like puzzle pieces. Like coming home.

“It’s getting late,” Charlie murmurs, staring down at the table, his voice low and unemotional.

Owen squeezes his hand. “Yeah.”

Slowly, Charlie turns to look at him—there’s something hollow about the look on his face, drawn and vaguely severe. Distant. The anxiety sits there in the swelling emptiness of Charlie’s expression and Owen—who is puffed full of a scathing determination to not think about tomorrow _at all_ — aches to press feeling and security back into Charlie with his hands. Aches to leave bruises in the shapes of his fingertips, aches to see Charlie close, breathe easy, forehead smooth and eyes muddled with an afterglow.

He brings Charlie’s hand to his mouth with both of his, pressing a long kiss to the valleys and mountains of his knuckles, over his rings. “Let’s go to bed,” Owen murmurs against his skin, feeling how his eyebrows cut low over his eyes, the rough scrape of his voice filling the space between them.

Charlie stares at him, for a moment looking uncertain, but then he squeezes Owen’s hand back and sighs, dropping his eyes. “Yeah.”

Owen doesn’t want to. Wants to stay up and maybe drag Charlie outside to the fenced-in pool area of the private villa Kenny’s been renting. They’re leaving tomorrow and Owen’s getting right on a flight back to Oklahoma, leaving Charlie at LAX until his own six hours later. He doesn’t want to say goodbye to Kenny, didn't want to say goodbye to Tori and Carolynn and Jeremy when they left, but he _really_ doesn’t want to say goodbye to Charlie. He doesn’t know when they’ll be able to see each other again; Kenny hasn’t said anything about a season two and a ticket to Canada is expensive, even now.

Two weeks isn’t enough to get his fill of Charlie. And now he has one more sunrise with him.

They take their time heading back to their room from the kitchen, hands still linked like a lifeline between them. Despite the sense of time tick, tick, ticking away, there’s a desire to slow down, to revel in this stillness before the sadness of tomorrow takes over. They've got a five hour flight to be together, but the brunette will probably be asleep for most of it, knocked out by Dramamine. Charlie’s hand is warm in his, solid and gripping, and that steadies him, grounds him. It quiets the part of him that is whispering, begging, to put Charlie back at ease—to calm Charlie so that he can calm himself.

When they get to their room, Charlie drops his hand to grab a change of clothes and then makes his way into the bathroom with single-minded focus, as if he must do everything deliberately to avoid letting his thoughts wander. Owen can relate—and he wants to help, wants to forget, too. So, he follows closely behind, stepping into the bathroom on Charlie’s heels, and when Charlie turns around to close the door, Owen is already there.

Charlie looks up at him with a furrowed brow. “You showered this morning.” It sounds more like a question than a statement, his gaze clouded, hard and delicate at the same time, in a way that Owen can’t quite fathom. He doesn’t know what’s going on in his head when he looks at Owen like that.

After all this time together, Charlie is still a mystery to him, somehow, as unpredictable as ever.

How can he know someone so well and still not at all?

He presses a hand to the door, hearing the latch click into place before he locks it, allowing himself to be earnest with Charlie. “I want to be with you.”

His murmured honesty is warm enough to melt a little bit of the ice chips in Charlie’s eyes, softening the edges of him as his tense shoulders drop with a slow exhale. He nods, turning his face from Owen. “Okay,” he says softly.

Owen watches fondly as Charlie puts his clothes down and then starts the hot water for a shower before turning to face him. Then, he steps forward and Charlie leans back against the counter as Owen takes his face in his hands gently and searches his expression as he closes in on him, their hair brushing together at their foreheads. Charlie lets out a shaky exhale as his eyes flutter to a close, reaching up to circle his fingers around Owen’s wrists, as though to keep him where he’s at. Owen sighs, pressing light little kisses to each of Charlie’s closed eyelids, his cheeks, the flat space between his eyebrows. He commits every one of Charlie’s steady breaths to memory, each of his sun-stained freckles, the way his dark eyelashes feather against his cheeks. After tomorrow, there’s no telling when he’ll be able to do this again.

“I love you,” Owen whispers against the bone at the top of Charlie’s cheek.

Charlie furrows his eyebrows, opening his eyes into slits, looking off to the side like he can’t stand to see the look on Owen’s face. “Don’t.”

Owen ignores him, presses the words again into the corner of Charlie’s mouth. “I love you.”

“Owen.” Charlie slides his hands down the length of Owen’s forearms, his voice reserved, surrendering with a waver.

“Charlie, look at me.”

Reluctantly, Charlie slides his gaze back towards Owen.

Owen rubs his thumb back and forth tenderly against the hair around his ears. “We’re gonna be fine,” he murmurs.

“I know,” Charlie whispers, fiercely, like he wants to believe it. He looks up at Owen, eyebrows crinkled. “I just—I don’t want you to say that to me like—I don’t want you to say it like a goodbye.” His eyes are icy, determinedly cold, his mouth screwed up in a frown.

“I’m not saying goodbye,” Owen assures him, heart aching, the words falling from him effortlessly in a desperate bid to make Charlie understand. “I’m saying tomorrow, we’ll say ‘see you later’ but we won’t say goodbye. I’m saying, when this pandemic is over, I’m going to come visit you and your family and we’re going to go camping for real. Not just a tent in our apartment. I’m saying I’m going to marry you, and everyone we love is going to be there. I’m saying we’re going to _live,_ Charlie. Not stuck in our houses, millions of miles apart. No more only meeting in fleeting moments.”

Charlie blinks up at him, the crease between his eyebrows deepening, clutching at Owen’s forearms.

“How are you so sure?”

“Hey,” Owen says softly, brushing his thumb against the line of Charlie’s jaw. “We’ve survived this long, haven’t we?”

Charlie stares for another minute and then lets out a long, low breath, eyes fluttering closed again. “Yeah. We have.” He lingers on that, leaning into Owen’s touch, as if he’s drawing strength from it, and that’s something, isn’t it? That Owen can give him strength like that? “I love you,” Charlie swears fervently, quietly, and when he opens his eyes again, the cold distance is completely gone. His gaze burns like twin stars, decided and present and focused.

“I love you, too,” Owen promises in a low breath, speaking the words directly into Charlie’s mouth as he leans in and kisses him. It’s slow and sweet, unhurried. Charlie seems to take his time with him, indulging in the pace that Owen has set, his hands running back up Owen’s arms to circle his wrists and hold him there. He lets Owen press him into the counter as the steam from the running water begins to swirl around them in insistent little tendrils, clawing at their clothes. When he pulls back, he slides his hands down the column of Charlie’s throat to start working at the buttons of his flannel, fingers methodical, feeling Charlie’s attention, the weight of his gaze on his face through half-lidded eyes. He doesn’t understand how Charlie can wear a flannel, buttoned, in the middle of a humid Hawaii winter, but the brunette does run cold and Kenny keeps the air conditioning on high.

The air is sticky and hot, clinging to Owen’s temples, dampening his hair. Each button slips easily from its loop and Charlie stands there with his hands at his sides. His chest moves beneath Owen’s fingers as Charlie struggles to catch his breath, neither of them saying a word. There’s not much left to say; Owen has never been able to properly capture his emotions through words alone, and now he just wants to be close to Charlie, skin to skin, heartbeat to heartbeat.

Once he’s made it to the bottom, he slides his hands back up Charlie’s stomach and chest, his hands beneath the fabric and still separated from Charlie’s skin by a thin band shirt. His gaze follows his hands, easing the flannel off of the slope of Charlie’s shoulders, reverent about it, as though he’s never had the privilege of undressing this gorgeous boy in front of him before, as though he'll never get the chance to do it again. And it feels like it, because the US is being shit about this epidemic and he doesn’t know if _Julie and the Phantoms_ will be renewed—Netflix is being silent on that front even though they’re promoting the shit out of the show anyway—so Owen has no idea when he’ll be able to see Charlie again in person. Doesn’t know the next time he’ll get to touch the other boy, so he’s going to take the time to be as reverent a possible, to let his hands memorize Charlie’s curves and the warmth of his skin.

His hands follow the sleeves from Charlie’s arms, chasing it down as the fabric finally falls away and pools in a heap on the floor beneath them. Owen can’t help himself; he leans in and places a kiss to his shoulder as his hands find Charlie’s waist and skate around to the back, inching under the shirt and slowly moving it up his torso with patient fingers. Charlie sighs against the attention, twitching a little when Owen reaches the middle of his spine and kisses the freckle beneath his ear.

He leans away only far enough to pull the shirt off, up and over Charlie’s head, mussing his long hair, before he’s coming back, pressing his lips to the corner of Charlie’s jaw. The shirt ends up discarded beside them, and then Charlie is grabbing for Owen’s thin zip-up with a touch of desperation, a little tremble in his hands, a hitch in his breath. Owen takes his hands in both of his and kisses his fingers, his palms, his wrists, his knuckles—anywhere he can reach.

“Hey,” he whispers against them. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

“Owen,” Charlie whispers back, fervent, the fracture in his voice nearly too subtle to hear. “Let me touch you."

Owen presses Charlie’s hands palms down to his own chest and leans in for another kiss, this one longer than the first, every shift of Charlie’s hands beneath his making his skin prickle with heat. Charlie is quicker in pulling Owen’s clothes off—still unrushed, still living moment by moment, but he doesn’t linger. His hands find all of the divots of Owen’s muscles, and trace over all of the dips and freckles on his skin from hip to cheek and Owen burns warm and low beneath the attention, his own hands heavy at his sides as Charlie returns the favor.

Before long, they’ve both discarded the last of their clothing and step into the hot spray of the shower, steam swirling around them. Owen crowds up against Charlie, making it easier to share the water, and Charlie sighs at the proximity, reaching up to brush all of Owen’s hair back from his face, wetting it down. Owen smiles and tips his head back, lets Charlie scratch at his scalp gently with shampoo and rinse it out afterwards.

Charlie takes his time again with the soap, skimming his hands through the suds on Owen’s body, slower than before as though to better commit every inch of him to memory. Owen can only let him wander for so long before he’s moving, grabbing Charlie by the waist and pulling him up against his soapy body. For the first time in days, Charlie laughs, a booming from-the-belly laugh instead of just a chuckle, bracing himself against Owen’s shoulders so that his feet don’t slip against the slick tile. The sound is so good that Owen has to kiss him, once and then twice and then a third time, for good measure.

“This is exactly why I can’t take showers with you,” Charlie says softly, amused, as Owen pulls back. He thumbs gently at Owen’s throat. “Handsy.”

“I hope you don’t expect me to apologize,” Owen says seriously, squeezing at Charlie’s sides firmly, tilting his head to expose more of his neck to Charlie’s wandering gaze.

Charlie rolls his eyes but he’s smiling. “As if.” His thumb runs that tender trail again, up and down, slicked by the water, and his smile grows softer as he focuses on the motion. “It’s just what I need right now.”

Owen lets his hands move lower from Charlie’s hips, over the dip of the small of his back as the water falls over both of them. “Charlie.” He pauses for a moment and then smooths his hands back up Charlie’s sides, feeling the hard, lean muscle beneath his touch and follows the path with his eyes, until he is holding Charlie’s face in his hands and settling him with his gaze. “What else do you need?”

“C’mere,” Charlie murmurs softly, angling his chin up.

Owen leans in for another kiss and Charlie wraps his arms tightly around his neck, pressing himself even closer, the steam making the whole stall hazy and dreamlike, separate from the harsh reality outside of this bathroom. Like they’re not going to be separated for who knows how long. Like they’re back in that apartment in Vancouver or the temporary one in LA before the show dropped. Owen’s hands drop from Charlie’s face to instead hold him around his waist, tilting his head into the kiss, letting Charlie lead.

“We’re gonna be fine,” Charlie whispers against his mouth, softly.

Owen hums. “We’re gonna be fine.”

“We’ll see each other again.”

“Yeah.”

“We’re gonna get married.”

Owen’s heart trembles, throat tightening with emotion for a brief moment before it passes. “Yes.”

Charlie nestles his face against the wet stretch of Owen’s neck, the water at his back. “What about after? What are we gonna do after?”

“We could get a house,” Owen murmurs into his ear, stroking a hand up Charlie’s slick back, the water still hot, the air humid.

“You wanna buy a house with me?” Charlie asks, sounding incredulous, like the thought hadn’t occurred to him before. It makes Owen wonder what Charlie had pictured. An apartment? One of those back-of-a-van beds while they travel around? A city? The country? The suburbs?

“I wanna do everything with you,” Owen tells him.

Charlie tucks himself closer with a shaky breath. “Love you, Owen. Love you, love you, _love you_.” The emotion chokes Owen again and he buries his face into Charlie’s neck, too, unable to speak.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what y'all thought!!
> 
> The chapters will bounce around in time.


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